How was I to know
by Gloomy Shadows
Summary: I could see her crowching down to the ground slowly, her eyes fluttering to be closed forever. My eyes came from fear to complete panic as I slam my fist once again against the unbreakable glass. I even tried kicking it down, but to no prevail, I had failed. I had failed my true purpose in life. Shadaria.


_I stand-alone now,_

_Staring at my past,_

_The only thing that keeps in my head to last,_

_..._

_Her face, Her blue eyes,_

_All make me smile,_

_The blood splattering, and her cries,_

_Stays still with me throughout all the while,_

_..._

_Nonetheless I keep myself together,_

_It feels normal to me though,_

_Like a birds wing and a feather,_

_..._

_One day I'll meet up with this strange Maria,_

_Up in the place called heaven,_

_And I'll see if it was true,_

_Of all the things I think about, it's mostly of you,_

_..._

_It makes me wonder of how I truly thought,_

_Of all the pain of that memory,_

_I can tell all the happiness you have brought,_

_..._

_I would have loved to remember you,_

_To get to know you,_

_For that gruesome image is the only thing I really knew,_

_..._

_Until that time I shall keep myself together,_

_But there is one thing you should remember,_

_That no matter what, I love you and that'll be the same forever._

* * *

**{Shadow's POV}**

All I remember was being frozen.

I was deathly still as I stood staring at my best friend. She was leaning over a switch that could cause her life or death, and it was all up to her. Pulling that switch would save me...but wouldn't save her, not pulling the switch...she might have a chance to survive. At this I clench my fists and pound furiously at the glass, my eyes never leaving hers.

"Maria!" I yell over and over, and all I get in return is a weak smile. "Shadow." I could hear her whisper, barely audible, but I could still hear... I could tell she was about to say more, but before she could, I heard a small explosion as the door that had kept us safe for now opened quickly, followed in by a GUN soldier. His face was strict and firm, as he held a gun against his body.

"Get away from that switch." he commands in what was expected to be a high authority voice. My eyes widen as I now scream her name. Kicking now twice the power I had done before. Maria shook her head, her face showing somewhat pain though.

"I'm warning you," he now threatened. I could then hear his gun cock. "Get. Away. From. That. Switch." he now tried a one at a time word attempt, but it didn't work on Maria, as she was determined to save me. I cry at her to let go of the switch so they could turn me in and she could be save again with her grandfather, and so that she could prefill her wish and visit the planet she loved so much. She still didn't budge to even _my_ cries.

"I'm going to count down to the count of three and by then you better have had let go of that switch." he ordered, I could though hear his tone becoming somewhat fearsome and weary. "One..." he began to threaten, his gaze switching from me to her.

Maria still didn't move, her eyes now traveling to where the soldier stood to where I was. She mouthed something that I just couldn't catch. I now stopped slamming against the pod. For one, I knew it wouldn't break as my own creator had made it for that reason so that a person in use of it wouldn't drown in space of the loss of oxygen, and for also I knew it was of no use and I just was wasting my energy.

Just because I knew of all this, doesn't mean I wasn't scared of what she might be doing. At this time of judgment I admit, I, Shadow, the so-called 'ultimate life-form', was scared. Was scared of what I had done, was scared of what my role had ended up laying out for Maria's faith, and for her...

"Two..." the soldier had broken my trail of thoughts. Now I could tell he had his suspicions too. He was ordered of getting rid of anyone who would get in the way of my capture. Of this I knew. I knew that if forced, he would kill my dear Maria. Even so, he was still worried some of doing such an act. I could tell by the way he was shaking slightly, but still visibly, I could tell by the way his eyes flickered around the room, I could tell by the beads a sweat forming against his forehead. Then I saw his handgrip tighter around the gun.

"Ugh," I heard something grunt quietly as I snapped my head to see Maria...she had pulled the switch. I was not the only one who noticed as the exact second a bullet noise echoed through the room and especially through the escape pod.

I saw her fall. Helplessly to the ground. Blood splattered from her wound that should have never taken form. Her hand slamming against the cold hard floor as well as the rest of her limp body. Her blue eyes closing, for what I had feared would have been for the last time. I knew that it was not so, at least, not yet as I could barely, but still seeing the rise and fall of her chest. Her eyes re-opened to reveal her ocean-blue ones. This time not filled her with usual joy, or playfulness, but of pain. Pure, utter pain.

I could see out of the corner of my eye the man drop his gun from his hold out of shock and horror. "What have I done?" he whispered to himself, shaking his head, he fled the way he entered, except tons more quicker. I stood deathly still, my eyes switching from that horrible human invention labeled a gun, to Maria's still and quiet body.

"Shadow." she coughs. She looked up weakly to face me. My eyes never left her as I heard some electronic words form, from above. "Escape pod activated. Retracting from colony in t-minus one minute."

"No!" I cry, my vision getting blurry and moist. "Shadow..." I hear her voice repeat ever so softly. I shake my head as she talks, urging her to stop talking so that her body could rest better and start to heal, as if I had believed then that she could be saved, though deep, down inside, I knew otherwise.

"Please...promise me...you'll help the people of this planet..." she whispers weakly. She then raises her head an inch off the ground. "They need you Shadow." she whispers once again, and with that slowly slumping towards the ground.

"No!" I continue to cry. "Maria wait!" She shakes her head and smiles sadly at me, knowing as well as I did but as I didn't want to believe, she couldn't wait. Nothing would or even could save her now. Her time was over now...because of me...because I ever had existed in a world I was never born naturally to.

"Sayonara, Shadow...the hedgehog." she whispers, the smile still planted ever so softly on her face as she slowly crouches to the ground, her eyes fluttering to be closed forever. My eyes came from fear to complete panic as I slam my fist once again against the unbreakable glass. I even tried kicking it down, but to no prevail, I had failed. I had failed my true purpose in life.

I was to help Maria by finding a cure for her. As a bonus I was to help the world become a better place as it was both my creators and even now her wish, but my true identity was to help Maria. I had failed I knew as I watched her die before my eyes. I knew that now there was nothing nobody could do now. She would die. I saw her take another ragged but quiet breath as she finally fell still, her eyes finally closing, and her heart starting to stop beating...

"No!" I yell just as I saw the one minute I have had left of being attached still to the colony, being demolished to a zero as the pod flew away. As it did, from the corner of my eyes I saw the commander of GUN back then, who had started to whole attack on me yell in outrage as he knew I was now fully out of his reach.

I didn't care though, as I hurtled towards the planet I had dreamed of Maria and me both visiting together, I was only thinking about her. Of all the pain I had ended up causing her, and everybody else I had loved. The professor too would truly be the only other person to feel at least a bit of fury, horror, and disgust I had now encountered toward humans everywhere.

I continued to fall towards the planet I had now cursed from then on. Cursing the planet, cursing GUN, cursing that GUN soldier...cursing my own existence...

I felt my hands slide down on the glass as some wet substance dropped from my face. After that one liquid fluid had dropped, many others followed. It made my vision blurry as I became in contact with the planet Earths atmosphere. I could feel the pressure against the pod as my hands flung instinctively to both sides of the pod to keep me balanced.

_'Not the safest way to travel to Earth if Maria was here with me.'_ I thought to myself in anger and depression. It did surprise me though that the soldiers were amazed and awed at the professors work. As if it seems those on Earth are more primitive then aboard the ARK, which wouldn't surprise me if it were true.

I looked down below my feet to see that not only were the continents gone from view suddenly, but also that I could see individual objects from below slowly, but what I knew was in a really fast speed still. I close my eyes at this, waiting for a large impact to irrupt. There was a large one.

Glass splattered around me, glittering in the moonlight. Steam aroused from what the pod had become as I fell over and rolled violently to the ground. Weak and helpless as pain filled me and my lungs gasped for air through the fog, but none of the pain compared to the one in my heart that I felt as I remembered Maria had suffered a far worse pain then mine.

I close my eyes as I gather myself painfully together and sit in the alien grass looking up at the stars that felt now unfamiliar to me. Feeling something what I believe the professor stated as 'cold' brush against my fur and blow my ears to against the form of flowing energy. The plants and animals around me felt as alien as I had ever thought it would be. Maria taught me of some of these but now all my knowledge is of waste. Maria would not come with me now, she was gone, gone forever...

But how was I truly to know what was to become of me after that? To be narrowed down to my exact location once on Earth, captured and but in a sleep-like state for over fifty years, and when reawakened, become thirsty for revenge against the people of the Earth, only to be ended up saving them and risking my life for them at the very end, ending up risking all the memories I have had aboard the ARK to be lost except for that gruesome image I had encountered the day of Maria's death.

How was I suppose to know that I'd be reawakened by the same bat I would have met when awakened the first time, and to team up with her and a robot and fight against the team I had been on not long ago?

How was I to know that, when unconscious from the fight with my own prototype, I'd be cloned and copied off of so I wouldn't even know who I truly was. If I was even real or not even when I had my memory loss to deal with.

How was I to know that I would meet my own biological father, Black Doom, as he would use me to fight against the humans or for myself to use the time to find my memory, or use that time to help save the world Maria loved so much with that faker, and with all those choices I would make, deciding the true fate of the world.

To know that I would have to come to the most bizarre things in life like going through cyber-space itself, or even going back in time to meet with Maria...then all of the time of it all using to find out about my past being wasted for me deciding to put my dreaded past behind me and fight my own father to the death to save the world that Maria once again coaxed me to save from a video the professor recorded in such of an event to occur.

_'How?' _The words echo through my head as I now looked up to see the stars shining above me, the colony not too far from it. All the time of calling that blue hedgehog a faker, I now noticed maybe _I _was the faker the entire time. After all, at least he was naturally born, with a mother and a father, maybe even siblings. Having friends and having a good time. At least he has a life.

Even as I breathe and live, I truly don't have a life now that I think of it. I was never born, I was just created off some lab in space. Sounds like something fictional and scary. Why wasn't Maria scared of me though? She knew I was different. Why be my friend? And now since she is gone, unlike the faker, I don't have any friends that I can truly talk to.

I care for Rouge and Omega as a best friend would. I would call Rouge my best friend and Omega a close one, but I can never truly talk to them as I fear they would not understand, not relate, or begin to fear me too.

And lastly, how would I be even able to be thinking about having a good time when my world and life is full of war, blood, cold murder, tears and death. When I know that I can't become too close to a person without fearing of them to become at least remotely similar of what had become of Maria.

I clench my fist tightly as I walked down the path to what was to end to the entrance of the city of Westopolis. I close my eyes and feel the wind blow against my ears, flowing them forwards while doing so. Strangely in the exact way as it had done when I had first entered this world. I reopened my eyes and look back towards the sky, into space of what was my home and 'birth' place.

"How was I to know...such things would happen in life Maria?" I whispered, looking down to my hand, which was now open to a cupping-like position. Surprisingly, Maria was of like a lot of my friends and/or allies I had encountered. But one person she resembles stood in my head that moment.

_'That faker...' _Shadow though suddenly. _'He sadly reminds me of her...his attitude towards others in a cheerful manner, trying his best to have everyone smile. Making friends with the impossible. Living life to his fullest...' _

Shadow shook his head clear of those thoughts. But that last one stood in his mind. _'If Maria was alive would she be disappointed at me? For grieving for her and not living a true life from another start? I am immortal. I can make mistakes and I can change my ways and learn from them once made. Other cannot. They only live a certain period of time. I have a gift...and I truly miss use it don't I?'_

I straighten my posture. Maria would have wanted that all along wouldn't she? Yes, no doubt about it that she would have. If that's what she also wanted then I shall also prefill that promise for her. I will live life to the fullest I can. I blink slowly and wipe away the image of Maria's death, and replace it with my newfound goal that she would want me to complete.

_'How was I too know not long ago about the wish you wished upon me? Whatever the matter is, there is one thing I do know Maria. It is that no matter how hard the wish, your wishes will live on, through me, through my action, and through the world as I make them come true.'_

* * *

_**A/N: Hope you enjoyed reading this one-shot like story I was working on. Shadaria is one of my favorite Sonic couples if not my most favorite. Hope you enjoyed it and please review. Criticism is taken, but I mostly only care and actually listen to the constructive ones. **_


End file.
